But he continued: “Technology can be an enormous enabler. I’ll give you one example. I have never really talked about this before, but I am dyslexic and I didn’t ﬁnd that out at school. I found out at university, when a tutor said, 'You are good orally, but you cannot get it down on paper.'

"I think if Microsoft had invented spellcheck ﬁve years later it would have had a massive negative impact on my career. By the time I got to the workplace, everything was done on word processors and that solved my very serious spelling problem,” Mr Hancock said.

"I have never talked about this because it’s a weakness, and people don’t like talking about weakness, it makes you feel vulnerable, but with the help of technology, dyslexia helps you think laterally because you have to work your way round problems.”

"You might remember the Tories lost Guildford in 2001,” he said, explaining that he planned a pamphlet with the catchphrase “I want to unite the community” – only to realise, after it had been delivered to 50,000 households, that it in fact said “untie”.

The full interview will be published in the GQ November issue, available on October 4.